


i could only breathe

by howshouldibegin



Series: big teeth small kiss [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 08:45:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11055447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howshouldibegin/pseuds/howshouldibegin
Summary: The Castle of Lions wasn't going anywhere in the near future, completely stationary near a Sol-sized star that had no planets nearby.  They had teludaved into the area as a test to completely make sure that Zarkon's connection to the Black Lion had been truly severed before going anywhere near the Blade of Marmora's headquarters.  Less than three minutes after arriving, the entire castle shuddered, the lighting flared briefly, and the engines went silent.





	i could only breathe

**Author's Note:**

> Fills the Shelter slot of Uliro Week 2017
> 
> All titles for this series come from [btsk by MS MR](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx7afw6CmYc).
> 
> Set some time after S02E07 Space Mall.

The Castle of Lions wasn't going anywhere in the near future, completely stationary near a Sol-sized star that had no planets nearby. They had teludaved into the area as a test to completely make sure that Zarkon's connection to the Black Lion had been truly severed before going anywhere near the Blade of Marmora's headquarters. Less than three minutes after arriving, the entire castle shuddered, the lighting flared briefly, and the engines went silent. 

When the paladins had first entered the castle, back on Arus, there had been no engine noises. From the moment they set to leave Arus to then, the engines had been going. A soft, low hum in the background, easy to ignore, yet assuring to hear, to know that everything was operational and therefore safe to travel in the great vacuum of space. Everyone was deeply unsettled, to have that audible layer of safety suddenly absent. At first, none of them noticed, but quickly became aware that something was off; Hunk was the first one to point out the silence. 

Coran had quickly announced over the castle's PA system that they were just passing through a star storm, nothing to worry about at all, things would be back up and running again in two doboshes.

That had been over an hour ago. 

Lance had expressed surprise that stars even had storms, but Pidge cheerfully started explaining that it wasn't that uncommon, even their sun had storms pretty much daily, throwing off solar radiation and flares and coronal mass ejections, which is probably what they stumbled into, given the technology glitches. Even Earth crafts had a history with CMEs.

Shiro left the two of them at it in order to find Allura. She and Coran had assured them all that everything was well in hand and none of them were needed on the bridge, but Shiro had to do something, and maybe get some assurances that they weren't going to die in space.

Keith was on his way back to the lounge, and Shiro saw the look of mild concern on his face, but ignored it as he passed Keith. Everyone had been doing it as of late. He knew he'd been a little quieter than usual since Thaldycon, but he didn't see the need for fussing.

Coran was the only one who hasn't giving Shiro sad eyes, but he was being more jovial than usual when he saw Shiro. He was with Allura when Shiro stepped onto the bridge, and greeted him with a jovial, “Number one! Exactly the right person we need right now!”

Shiro blinked in surprise. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Oh! No, I just-- uh . . .” Coran trailed off, trying to find an excuse to make Shiro feel useful, or to distract him from his morbs, whatever that was, the translator wouldn't translate it. Shiro could figure it out from context, but refused to acknowledge it any more than the worried looks.

“I'm afraid the castle won't be going anywhere for a bit, Shiro,” Allura cut in, rescuing Coran. “This star storm is a bit more severe than we initially thought. It completely shut down most of our power. We have lights, basic life support, gravity, and not much else. We'll be fine, we have enough life support for a couple of quintents, and this storm should pass in another couple of vargas.”

Hours. She meant hours. And vargas were almost an hour and half long, so a couple of vargas meant about three hours. 

“I'll let the others know,” Shiro said, dreading three hours of downtime. Maybe he could hide from the others in the Black Lion; not to say that he disliked spending time with them, but he wasn't sure he could handle their inevitable questions right now.

“Thank you, Shiro. Two more vargas, maximum, I promise.”

The lights flared a few times as Shiro made his way back to the lounge, as they had been doing since they entered the system, briefly intensifying before settling back to normal levels. Just as he reached the doorway, the lights actually dimmed for a few seconds, and the castle rocked like a boat on the water, making Shiro steady himself against the doorway. 

Four sets of eyes found him, and he assured them, “A little over three hours, guys, Allura promises this is all normal.”

“It's just like a windstorm,” Keith said. “The lights did the same thing at the Garrison when the wind really kicked up.”

Years of memories of past storms ran through Shiro's mind, especially the ones while he studied at the Garrison. Even the Garrison's bunkers shook during the massive sand storms that ran through once or twice a year. Even further back in his memory were the few typhoon he encountered when his family still lived in Japan; they were hazy memories at best, as he was only four when they left Japan, but he remembered how the apartment building shook with the force of the winds.

“We weren't in the vacuum of space at the Garrison, though!” Hunk protested.

“Oh man, have any of you been in a hurricane?” Lance laughed. “This is nothing! A little wind and power flickering, and you're worried? Nah, the castle lasted ten thousand years without maintenance and is still perfectly space worthy.”

“On the Kerberos mission, we got tagged by a coronal mass ejection, just past Mars,” Shiro offered. “Did the same thing as this, knocked out a few systems, lights flickered, shook Persephone a little, but we barely lost ten minutes to it. I think if an Earth ship can handle a CME, that an Altean castle-ship definitely can.”

“Shiro's right,” Pidge piped up. “It's only because we're so close to the star that has us disabled for four hours. Allura and Coran would have told us if something were really wrong.”

“And if we lose life support?” Hunk exclaimed.

Shiro sat down heavily, spreading his arms along the back of his couch, relaxing as the weight of his right arm was spared from his shoulder for a brief time.

“Allura assured me that we have enough life support for a couple of days, a little longer, but this star storm will definitely be over in a few hours, so even if life support gets knocked out, we have breathable air for long enough to get it running again. And if not, we have the lions. We're going to be fine, Hunk.”

“Yeah, listen to the only person here who has been through a star storm before, Hunk,” Lance said, elbowing his best friend. “Nothing's gonna happen.” The lights chose then to flare briefly, further enhancing Hunk's look of worry.

“Nothing but boredom for the next three hours,” Keith said, arms crossed. 

“Oooh! We could play games!” Lance offered, bouncing in his seat. “Like, like Truth or Dare, or Never Have I Ever!”

Pidge scoffed. “As if that won't end with us knowing way too much about each other and being forced to share stories we don't want to share.”

“Sounds like there's something there to share, Pidge.” Lance bounced his eyebrows at her.

“Nope. I'd own all you horndogs at it, and that's just plain boring. Pass.”

“Shiro.”

Shiro turned to face Keith, who was looking at him intently. The other three settled in their ribbing each other to watch expectantly. He sighed inwardly, knowing what was coming next.

“About Ulaz . . .” Keith trailed off, his eyes sliding away from Shiro, discomfort plain on his face. “Why didn't you tell any of us that it was . . . like that?”

“Keith!” Hunk hissed. “Not cool, man!”

“It's okay Hunk,” Shiro said, resigned. “I've been waiting for someone to bring up Ulaz. It's okay. He's gone, and I'm obviously not okay with how he sacrificed himself to save us, but I'm not grieving someone I knew all that well. There was no 'like that' with Ulaz. It . . . he and I, it just . . . we weren't like that.”

Hunk lost his previous worried look and eyed Shiro with a healthy dose of skepticism. “Are you sure? 'Cause it kinda sounded like it was 'like that' from the communications deck.”

Shiro just sighed and tilted his head back to rest on the back of the couch, closing his eyes. “It was just sex,” Shiro says dully, “no matter what I wished it could be otherwise.” 

“Wait what? No one told me about this!” Lance protested.

“You wanted to 'protect the princess',” Keith said, exaggerating the finger quotes. “So no, we didn't tell you that we all heard Shiro and Ulaz having desperate reunion sex.”

Shiro cracked an eye open to look at Keith. “You're trying to embarrass me, but I can tell you right now that it's not going to work. Sex doesn't embarrass me.”

“How about talking about your grieving of someone that you apparently didn't know all that well?” Keith shot back. 

“I'm fine.”

“You're not fine, Shiro. Even I can see that.”

“Fine,” Shiro snapped, getting irritated. “You're right, I'm not. I haven't been since Kerberos, and I probably won't ever be, but you know what? Sure, pick the one good thing I had just for myself in the last year and a half. Let's talk about my fucked up sex life instead literally everything else that is fucked up in my life right now.”

“Shiro . . .” Pidge started, but trailed off as Shiro stood abruptly.

“No, I'm not doing this right now. It's not affecting Voltron in any way, or literally anything else, except in how all of you are walking on eggshells around me, and it needs to stop, right now.”

“We're just worried about you, Shiro,” Lance said quietly. “Like you said, Ulaz was the one good thing you've had in a long time, a-and now, and now he's gone, and we want to help, but . . . how?”

All of Shiro's previous annoyance melted away, leaving him tired. He was just so tired. He let his muscles relax, almost stumbling as the castle rocked again, a little easier than the previous tremors. 

“That's the thing about losing someone: it's painful to go through, and it's painful to watch someone go through it, but there's really not anything you can do. Not any more than you all do already. I just . . . need some breathing room.”

“As long as you need,” Hunk swore. 

Shiro smiled shakily. “I'm gonna go lay down for a bit. You guys relax, enjoy the downtime. I'm sure Allura and Coran are plotting something strenuous for when we get the castle back up and running.”

A chorus of groans followed him out into the hall, some normalcy restored. 

If only he could soothe the ache in his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> “Got the morbs” is Victorian slang, therefore English, and therefore not the translator messing up, Shiro just isn't familiar with that specific term. It's a little lighter in meaning than what Shiro is actually going through, as it means a temporary melancholy. No, Shiro is a little more affected than that, and is well aware.
> 
> Uh, this one is pretty Ulaz and Uliro light. More Shiro grieving than anything else. And by grieving I mean using somewhat unhealthy coping mechanisms (aka denial and trying to occupy his time so he doesn't have to think about it). From personal experience, I would recommend not doing this. 
> 
> (I am not well-versed in science or astronomy or astrophysics, so if the CME bits are off, whoops.)


End file.
